This is quite a popular topic. I have aboutfourpreviousposts on what to do with used books, but I keep finding more resources and ideas that fit under this topic - plus, this time, an NYT article. Here's the latest:

Something Productive
Our Friends group recently started using Hands Across the Water as a place to donate books that they don't keep for their book sale. Their website describes them as "a non-profit organization that delivers an effective solution
to two problems:

the domestic problem of excess books going into landfills and the global problem of not enough books in needy areas

we collect books that are no longer wanted and send them to schools and libraries which desperately need them"

Something Artistic
More along the lines of using books in a creative/artistic way, another LISNews post pointed to an artist who arranges books she finds so that the spine titles read as a sentence (see image above). I'd never be able to find anything on the shelf this way, but it'd still be fun.

Something General
A recent post on LISNews highlighted an article (or here) in the New York Times, which "discusses ways of easing the process of giving away books. Columnist Alina Tugend spoke to her local librarian in Larchmont, NY about their donations and discusses a few other options and strategies to minimize the pain."

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